


Blue Ginger, or A Very Disappointing Blizzard

by MissEllaVation



Category: U2
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-10-09 08:13:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10407768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissEllaVation/pseuds/MissEllaVation
Summary: In which our heroes find themselves stuck in a snowstorm, and they can't go out in it.I mean, they could go out in it, but they choose not to.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [likeamadonna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeamadonna/gifts).



> Well, the big New York-area blizzard of March 2017 wasn’t really that big after all. But while I was sitting here waiting for it, I complained to likeamadonna that it would prevent me from stalking U2, who are recording and/or mixing in the city right this very minute! Mere train ride(s) away from me!* 
> 
> But likeamadonna is always at work. “You should write a story about Bono and Edge riding out the storm!” she cried. Well, she typed it, but it sounded like a cry. Always drawing water from a stone, that one! 
> 
> And I said, “okay.” So here it is. New York Blizzard Fluff. Seriously, this is nothing but fluff and squabbling. Do not expect sexy-times here.
> 
> Thanks to the aforementioned likeamadonna, spacemonkey, and fouroux for their warmth and generosity, and to all who have commented and left kudos for me. You can't imagine how lovely it feels, seriously. 
> 
> *I did end up stalking them, unsuccessfully, several days later. And when I say stalking, I mean I walked past the studio a couple of times and looked wistfully at the windows. Don’t call the cops.

“You call this a blizzard? This isn’t a blizzard.” Bono made a sweeping gesture at his living room windows. “It’s snowing. Big deal. It snows in New York, even in March. Why all the drama?”

Edge was supine, sleepy, and sinking inch by inch into an agreeably warm, plush sofa. He couldn’t imagine anywhere better to be on this cold, wet night than Bono’s place in New York—just the two of them. 

“You’ve assimilated, you know. You sound like them now.”

“Like whom?”

“The New Yorkers.” Edge affected a whiney gruffness. “It’s just _snow_. Big _deal_. Why all the drama? I’m asking!”

“Edge, don’t.”

“Whaddayou, _stupid_ or something?” Edge waved his arms around from the depths of the couch. “Hey, I’m _walking_ here!”

“Edge, I implore you. You are an endless delight to me, but you are comedically impaired.”

“Badda-bing, badda—”

“Gonna smother you with a cushion now.”

“—boom. Okay, okay.”

Bono turned back to the window, which was, from Edge’s point of view, a gorgeous panorama of purple sky, the distant golden squares of other people’s windows, and big, wet snowflakes catching the light like a sea of flashbulbs. Or a sea of cigarette lighters. Or, at this point in history, a sea of flashlight apps.

“It’s just that we could have stayed downtown and finished up a couple more things.” Bono was caffeinated, frustrated, and raring to go. Sometimes he had a hard time coming down from that. You couldn’t get him to start working, and then you couldn’t get him to stop. “It’s really not so bad out there.”

“It could get worse overnight.” Edge yawned, stretched. “I wouldn’t want to make anyone drive on icy roads with all those taxis and buses. And we’re too old now to spend the whole night in the studio. We did the right thing. So come here and share this ridiculous sofa with me.”

“Oh, all right.” Bono turned away from the windows. “Wait a minute, did you just call me _old_?”

“I did.” Edge nodded emphatically. “Old. Really old.” He paused, considering. “Old as balls.”

“Pardon?”

“It’s a thing the daughters say.”

Bono leered over the top of his Lennon-specs. “You didn’t seem to think I was old as balls last night when you—”

“Shh. Just come here and sit down.”

*

They sat close together, sock-feet on the coffee table, sharing a bottle of Puligny-Montrachet, watching a reporter in an enormous yellow slicker being buffeted by wind and wet snow on the local news. As always, Edge found the American media needlessly apocalyptic.

“Imagine if RTE did this every time it rained,” he murmured. “But I do like the kids making faces in the background.”

“Ah, and do you know why they do that?”

“No Bono, but I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”

“Because New York doesn’t shut down in the snow. Those kids are tough. If they were us, they’d be down there on 8th Street right now, finishing their fourteenth studio album.”

“Are those kids even fourteen years old?”

“That’s beside the point.”

“I don’t think it is. Unless they’ve been making an album a day for the last two weeks.”

Bono turned away from the screen to regard Edge with an expression of mild outrage. Edge braced himself. But all Bono said was, “are you hungry?”

“Ah, it all becomes clear now.” Edge patted Bono’s belly. “My poor underfed sweetheart. No wonder you’re so cross.”

“I am _not_ cross.”

Edge bit his lip. “You gonna cook something?”

“Sure. I’ll fry some water and scramble some toast.”

“Well, will someone deliver in this weather? Will any restaurants be open?”

“Edge, this is New York City, and there’s like _four_ inches of snow on the ground. So yes. Everything is open.”

“Bono I swear, if you make one more speech about New York—” Edge closed his eyes briefly and envisioned himself poolside, in a lotus position, under a brilliant Malibu sky. “Okay. What are you in the mood for?”

“Love.”

“Yes, sweetheart. I meant what kind of food, though.”

“ _I_ don’t know. Chinese?”

“Adorable. Okay, what’s your favorite place?”

Bono looked helpless suddenly, his eyes wide and very blue behind his specs. “I don’t know. Usually someone just orders the stuff and it appears.”

Edge was about to laugh or cry; he wasn’t sure which. This had been a stressful day. “Bono. Listen to yourself. Not so very long ago you would have shinnied down the fire escape wearing a rented ball gown and no underwear, and charmed free sandwiches out of the guy at the corner shop.”

“I could still do that.”

“You could.”

“I could!”

“I’m not disagreeing with you!”

“Fine.”

“Fine!”

Feeling ridiculous, Edge reached for his tablet, set it on his lap, and googled “Chinese takeaway, Upper West Side.”

Bono breathed down Edge’s neck. “In New York, we call it _takeout_.”

Edge closed his eyes, thought about the sound of one hand clapping, and re-typed. 

“Okay,” he said. “How about Bamboo Village?”

“Boring name. Prosaic.”

“But look, it’s got little pictures of all the food right on the menu! And it’s all sort of fluorescent orange.” Edge pointed at the sweet-and-sour pork. He never ate stuff like that anymore—deep-fried and goopy. “Weird. I really want some.”

“Pfft. You’ll have MSG headaches for days. You’ll be useless in the studio.”

“Right.” Edge took a deep, yogic breath. “Then how about this place—The Manchurian Candidate?”

“What the fuck? Is it really called that?” 

“Appropriate name for these times, hm?”

“Agreed. Got a hipster-ish ring to it, though.”

“Oh, definitely. Listen to this: ‘Small plates inspired by Asian-fusion, plus more than thirty-seven local craft beers.’”

“‘More than thirty-seven?’ Could they not just say thirty-eight? The eejits. Yeah, don’t call that one. What’s next?”

“Um, Sunshine Gourmet.”

“Aw.”

“What?”

Bono rested his head on Edge’s shoulder. “ _You_ are my sunshine gourmet,” he purred.

“Look, do you want dinner tonight or what?”

“Yes please.”

“Okay, how about this one? Blue Ginger.”

“Oh, now that sounds a bit sensual. A bit NC-17.”

“It’s also the most expensive Chinese restaurant in the vicinity.” Edge pointed at the row of dollar signs next to the name.

“Yeah but see, we’re in this band, Edge. And people give us lots of money sometimes, so that we can make records, and tour the globe, and even go to Brazil, and get the most expensive fucking Chinese food in the vicinity any time we want to.”

“Right.” Edge took another yogic breath and got ready for the next round. “So what do you want to order?”

*

“That…was disgusting.”

“What? I thought the food was quite good.”

“It was gorgeous, but we ordered enough of it for six people, and we ate it all.”

“Well yeah, I suppose that _is_ a bit disgusting.”

“And I just feel kind of guilty when I do this.”

“No, Bono. No. We are not talking about famine or extreme poverty tonight.”

“Edge.”

“It’s a guilt-spiral. You are who you are. Luck or destiny, who knows why? But you are not going to make me feel bad about eating twenty pounds of Hunan chili pepper chicken when there’s a blizzard raging outside.”

“It’s not _really_ a blizzard.” Bono glanced toward the windows. “In fact, it’s turned to sleet.”

“Please.” Edge threw a fortune cookie at Bono. “Eat more.”

“I’m already up to my eyeballs in bamboo shoots.” But Bono cracked open the cookie, and eagerly unfolded the little strip of paper inside. “I don’t believe this,” he said.

“What?”

“Listen. ‘You will soon finish a long-anticipated project.’”

“Bollocks. It does not say that. Give it here… Holy shit! It really does say that!”

“They’re not wrong, are they?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I think…we should call the cops. Because it sounds like Larry is being held prisoner in a Chinese bakery.”

“I love you,” Edge blurted. A strange time to blurt, when he had only meant to laugh. But it was true. He loved Bono, and he felt quite blissfully happy in this lovely warm room above Central Park, while little pellets of frozen rain hit the windows like thrown rice.

Bono beamed at him, that wide Luciferian smile that melted everything in its path. “What does _your_ fortune say?”

“It says, ‘You will be tormented by a tiny man with tiny feet.’”

“Edge.”

“Sorry. It actually says, ‘A pointy-faced man will make your life a living hell.’”

“Edge.”

“Okay, for real this time. It says, ‘Big mouth, small brain.’”

Bono snatched the fortune from Edge’s hand. “‘Enjoy the good luck a companion brings you.’ Aw, that’s sweet. And you couldn’t even bring yourself to read it to me.”

“How do you know you’re the companion in question?”

“Because… _obviously_.”

*

“What’s on Turner Classic Movies?”

Edge peered at the info bar at the bottom of the screen. “Em, The Manchurian Candidate.”

“Bollocks! Give me that remote.” 

A struggle ensued. Bono won. “It’s ‘Moonstruck,’ you great eejit.”

They settled once more on the big plush sofa to watch. Edge studied Vincent Gardenia and Danny Aiello intently, mouthing their lines along with them, thinking this might help him brush up on his New York accent. Maybe he could try it out again soon and impress Bono. He whispered the names “Rose” and “Loretta,” and lingered plaintively on the vowel sounds.

Bono rested his head against Edge’s shoulder. “Now I wish we’d ordered Italian,” he murmured.

“I know. This film always makes me hungry. From the minute Mrs. Castorini asks Bobo for the minestrone.”

“Even the olives in her martini look good.” Bono glanced sideways at Edge. “So. Are you Nicholas Cage, or Cher?”

“What? You mean—”

“Yeah. Which one are you?”

Edge laughed. “I guess I have to be Nicholas Cage, because you, sweetheart, are obviously Cher. Don’t even argue with me. You could still do the raven-haired diva thing if you wanted to.”

“In my rented ball gown and no underwear.”

“It goes without saying.”

“Okay, but just don’t expect me to get my nose fixed like hers.”

“Never. That would be an abomination.” 

“It would.”

“Yes, it would.”

“How does she even breathe through that thing? Oh, _this_ guy—John Mahoney—the professor. Did you know he’s originally from Manchester? And he’s gay.”

“Really?” Edge regarded the actor’s handsome face. “He makes such a convincing douchebag.”

“Nevertheless, he is a gay man from Manchester.”

“Good to know.”

“Hm, you know what? I think I’d rather be Olympia Dukakis than Cher at this point.”

“That’s because you’re old as balls.”

“Listen mate, I shall rip you limb from limb.”

“Oh yeah? With what arm?”

“Wow, you actually went there. You’re a horrible person, The Edge. If the fans only knew.” Bono slipped into his highest, most girly voice. “Oh, Edge is so _sweet_. Look at his sweet _face_. Oooh, he’s like the nicest man on _earth_. He radiates such gentleness.”

“That _is_ what the ladies tell me.”

“Well, I laugh. I laugh at those ladies. They don’t know the awful truth. They don’t know the _cruelty_ with which you have mocked my potentially life-threatening injuries.”

“What are you, jealous? You’re the one they all want to fuck, injuries or not.” Edge thought about a few of the women they knew. “Maybe _because_ of the injuries.”

“Maybe.” Bono shuddered. “So, which one of us do _you_ want to fuck?

“Myself. No, em, Adam. Definitely Adam.”

“Listen, you—”

“Come here.” 

Edge stretched out full length on the couch and immediately began sinking into it again. Bono curled up alongside him and lay his head in the hollow of Edge’s chest. Their combined weight made the sinking situation worse, but Edge didn’t mind. 

“What is this sofa made of, anyway? Quicksand?”

“No, it is made of the silken petals of a thousand-and-one blue ginger plants. That, and the pliant flesh of a hundred Hunan chili pepper chickens.”

Bono had taken off his Lennon-specs and was giving Edge the up-from-under-the-eyebrows look—the look that meant he knew he’d been clever. Edge was struck for the millionth time by the blueness of Bono’s eyes. He would always be struck by that, he knew, forever and ever, world without end.

Bono settled his head on Edge's chest again. Edge stroked his hair, gently, in the direction it grew. “Blue ginger,” he whispered. “That’s you, B.”

Bono didn’t answer. He had, in fact, fallen asleep, instantly, noiselessly, like a four-year-old who has had a very long day.

Edge figured he’d watch the rest of the movie. He managed to pull his head out of the upholstery and rest it on the arm of the couch. Not very comfortable, but he didn’t mind. He had seen this film often enough to know the important lines by heart, and he recited some of them along with Nicholas Cage: “The snowflakes are perfect, the stars are perfect, not us…We are here to _ruin_ ourselves, and break our hearts, and love the wrong people, and _die_.” But hopefully not for another fifty-six years or so, he added, silently.

Bono looked up drowsily. “Did you say something?”

“Nope. Go back to sleep.”

/fluff


End file.
